The men who told of this enormous rig, a "double-ripper" in very truth, are dead and I can't prove it by them, so I hesitate to state the length of this mammoth coasting device and the number of people it would carry lest aspersions be cast on their veracity--and mine--but it was very long and would carry a surprisingly large number. All Ponkapoag was wont to come out of moonlight nights and ride upon it, and its fame carried that of the little village very far. To have coasted on the big Ponkapoag double-runner was as much a thing to be mentioned boastfully in certain sections as it was in others to have been presented at court. Bob-sled is a proper, dictionary name for the ordinary form of this device and it is used at Davos and St. Moritz for jolly family parties on the straight courses. There they equip it with a bugle to herald its approach with joyous tootings, a bridle of steel wire by which it is steered in combination with pressure on a lever by means of the feet of the steersman, and also with a curious brake which consists of a nail studded board so rigged to the rear sled that the last man can drop it down to the ice and anchor it by the grip of the nails, thereby retarding its speed. The steersman on the mammoth Ponkapoag bob-sled steered by a rope bridle and the use of his feet on a stout wooden cross-bar, and his position was no sinecure. He had at least a ton of people on board and he had no brake. After the leviathan slid over the brow of the hill and began its downward course there could be no slowing up, no backward sled tracks, till the end of the course was reached. He must negotiate the curve at Captain Bill Tucker's corner at lightning speed and must rightly manage the mass in mighty momentum after that, if he would not spill them all in Ponkapoag brook. The big Ponkapoag bob-sled needed no bugle to herald its coming. When it started off and especially when it swung the curve at Captain Bill's the mingled melody of delight and dismay, masculine and feminine, could easily be heard a mile, and throughout the course the chant of the coasters carried runic warning well ahead of the approaching thunderbolt. In the legend of it all I find no mention of anyone being hurt.